Celebrating the Holiday Season and Genealogy!
Show & Tell / Bring & Brag.
At this meeting we celebrated the season and any genealogical breakthroughs, special stories, favourite websites, interesting documents or other artifacts, etc. Members are invited share their 'ah-ha' moments.
Festive snacks were shared during an extended break period, to ensure an opportunity to mingle, chat and taste.
..."Sourcing Your Researched Information"
... with Linda Boyd. Linda is Paul McGrath's (Ancestors in the Attic TV show) first cousin and they worked together on most of their family history.
All researchers of family history need to develop a system for recording their findings. Some methods are quite simple; others not so.
Lady Teviot spoke on the subject of "The Parish Chest", which includes a range of records generated by the Anglican Church: how to access, use, and enhance your research.
Lady Teviot has been involved in genealogy for over 35 years, and has held executive positions in both British and International organizations.
For a more detailed report, including references, see this Blog Entry.
Jennifer Weymark - Archivist for the Oshawa Museums and Archives - introduced materials of interest to family researchers in the Durham area.
The following General Meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, September 8 ( not the usual 1st. Tuesday of the month).
Relax! Catch up on reading! Enjoy the summer weather!
• June 2009
Don Hinchley (President of OGS)
"Newspapers and Genealogy: A Beginner's Guide (also the title of his book)"
This basic guide will help you search for newspapers containing information about your ancestors. If your family has roots in one of the many small communities throughout this province, such sources may add colour to your family history. There is much to be discovered in the papers of major centres, too. Despite the fragile nature of newsprint, hundreds of local, regional and national newspapers have survived in many forms — in archives, on microfilm or digitized and on the Internet.
• May 2009
Larry Doble
"The Homes and Buildings of Sunderland
Ontario 1872-2009"
Larry's new book covers churches, homes, hotels, blacksmiths,
undertakers and other businesses of Sunderland over a 130 year period.
He will provide an oral overview, along with photos from the book.
Dr. John Sabean, President of the...
"Mormon Missionaries, 1835"
Preachers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) came to the Pickering, Whitby, Oshawa area in 1835. Over the next few years they converted quite a few families to their faith. By 1838 most of the converts had left Upper Canada to join the Mormon westward migration. While the episode was brief the impact of the missionaries on both this area and on the future of the Mormon church was well out of proportion to the time spent here. [Interestingly, the Leonid Meteor Shower of 1833 prompted established faiths in Independence, Missouri to push Mormons out of the area. Also, Joseph Smith (the founder) visited Oshawa in 1838 or 1839, as recounted in these pages from the Oshawa Public Library web site: Pg1, Pg2, Pg3].
• March 2009
Krista Jorgensen [Librarian Archivist - Whitby Public Library and Archives], on the topic...
Discover Whitby Images
Whitby Public Library's online historic photograph collection is available at: www.OurOntario.ca/Whitby.
The presentation outlined the digitization process, and what you can find online - including popular site features (e.g.; sending electronic postcards and adding comments about photographs). Krista has posted over 2500 items for the OurOntario.ca photo archiving project - (more than any other contributor).
• February 2009
Nicole Patterson -Genealogy and Local History Librarian -Oshawa Public Libraries presented "History Online at the Library" - resources for the genealogist.
Researchers will find treasures on the Oshawa Public Libraries website as well as in the library. These include scanned local history books, photographs, and indexes for articles and BMD notices appearing in local papers. Here is a direct link to the Oshawa area newspapers search page and the Book of Remembrance for WWI and WWII.
• January 2009
Krista Jorgensen, Librarian Archivist from the Whitby Library and Archives, is working on the new photo archiving project - OurOntario.ca.
Her topic for our meeting was, "Storing and Preserving Old Photographs". She reviewed the various formats for making photographs, from the very first to our most recent technologies, highlighting methods for preservation and handling. [See Krista's PDF resource list-356KB and a further review on the Blog .